


Transcendence

by rqyh



Series: Commissions [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: (prompt will be detailed in the beginning notes), LGBTQ Characters, M/M, Multiple Universes, Non-binary character, Other, That ones already obvs from the relationships tag, You can guess their ethnicity through their names, i like how nimuel is the only one with a last name, multiple POVs, so many POCs I am so happy, the story starts off as comical but i swear its all serious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 08:14:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11482305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rqyh/pseuds/rqyh
Summary: In a world where your heart decides to go against the norm, there is no escape from the laws and rules by which every person has to abide.You can't stop worshiping what people deem worth to worship. You can't fall in love with someone you're meant to be friends with. You can't experience the pain people have gone through when everyone else is only allowed to watch.In this world, you can't break the law.But what if there were others?





	Transcendence

**Author's Note:**

> Commission prompt was: (1) A world in which everyone worshipped eggplants, (2) a world in which everyone went back in time (i.e. everyone grows younger), (3) a world in which people can see other worlds through dreams, and (4) in which all three worlds eventually meet.

i.

Ada found it weird that everyone found it _not_ weird to worship a purple vegetable that suddenly popped up in the middle of the city altar in the middle of the night without anyone’s prior consent, but she supposed that the city was already weird enough without it.

            The elders of the city called it a “divine miracle given to us by the gods and not something that you should be disrespecting, Ada,” ever since the root crop suddenly appeared everywhere in the city. Ada figured that, in a way, it _was_ a miracle, considering the fact that eggplants were not native to the land and that harvest season had long since left the country. The plants had suddenly appeared on the ground in the morning after what people thought was a normal night. They started growing left and right, in every direction, in every little nook and cranny they could fit themselves. It was an unexplainable phenomenon that happened for no reason apparent to humankind—a miracle in its own right.

            But. _But._

            People were worshiping a _vegetable_. A _goddamn vegetable._

Yes, it was definitely something people could justify be the work of a divine creature, but _for god’s sake, people._

Ada was pretty sure she was the only sane one in the city.

 

Ada stared at the eggplant soup that lay in front of her. She watched the violet liquid swirl ever so slowly, white steam coming up and bringing with it a smell that made Ada sick to the stomach.

            She looked up at her mother, who was busy serving the soup in to another purple bowl.

            “Don’t we worship eggplants?” Ada asked her mother. “Why are we eating them?”

            “Don’t question, Ada,” her mother advised, walking over to the table and seating in front of her daughter. She placed the bowl on the table with a _tap_. “It’s already a blessing that we are in the presence of the Holy Root Crop—” Ada stifled her laugh— “so stop it with your blasphemous questions.”

            Ada stopped herself from rolling her eyes. “Fine, but can I just say something? The last time I cooked eggplant—sorry, the _Holy Root Crop_ —I’m pretty sure it wasn’t purple.”

            “The eggplant you cooked was from a different country, Ada.” Her mother clicked her tongue in annoyance. “It’s nothing like the Divine Vegetable—” _Okay, what—_ “which produces a violet color—don’t laugh while I’m talking, young lady—unlike other eggplants. This one is special, Ada. It is right that we worship it.”

            “But _why?_ ” Ada whined. “All it is is an eggplant on steroids—it’s just a weird thing that happened for no reason; why worship it? What if it’s dangerous? What if it’s just a useless piece of—”

            “That is _enough_ ,” her mother said in a tone of finality, glaring at her daughter. “You have been nothing but rude to the Holy Root Crop. If you cannot respect what is evident, then get out of this house.”

            “ _What?_ ” Ada protested. “All I did was—”

            “All you _did_ was disrespect your _god_ and _creator_ ,” her mother spat at her. “I’ve tried to convert you and make you see what your eyes fail to see, but I see now that your blindness is incurable. I don’t want a daughter like you.”

            _What the hell?_

            Ada stared at her mother in shock.

“What happened to you?” Ada almost whispered. “You weren’t like this yesterday. You were laughing at the mayor for telling the citizens to worship a vegetable. You said the only reason why you followed him was because everyone was required to. What _happened?_ ”

            “I was enlightened, Ada,” her mother said, calm. “I know now why we must worship the Divine Root Crop. But you… you will never understand. And until you do, I don’t want to see your face ever again.”

 

Ada kept walking down the streets, not knowing where exactly she was headed, or whether she wanted to know in the first place.

            She couldn’t believe her mother for what just she just did. Yesterday the both of them were making jokes about the “believers” and how stupid it was to worship a vegetable, of all things. But today, she had just been thrown out of her own home a few hours after she woke up just because she was doing the same thing she was doing yesterday.

            Ada was too shocked to cry about it. Everything was just a mishmash of thoughts in her brain, everything around being one shade of purple or another. It was all purple, purple, purple ever since that stupid vegetable came out of the blue uninvited and unwelcome.

            Everywhere she looked, she saw purple. She saw violet and lilac and the combination of blue and red. The color of the restaurant sign was purple. The color of the traffic lights were violet. The color of that little schoolgirl’s backpack was purple. Everything. Purple, purple, purple.

            A voice from the back of her mind started whispering to her.

            _Roses are violet. Violets are violet. Sugar is violet, and so are you._

And then she saw it. Coming from the palms of her hands. She saw it.

            Her body was slowly turning violet.

            She screamed and screamed and screamed, but no one around her seemed to notice her. They all passed by while Ada screamed and shrieked and yelled.

            The violet was spreading across her body like paint blotches, growing more and more and more until her hands were violet, her wrists, her arms, everything.

            She looked around, frantically, but all she saw was purple, lilac, violet. All she saw was that same sickly color taking over her body.

            And then, a flash of yellow.

            A man was walking by, a yellow bag strapped onto his right shoulder. Ada had never seen him before, but the man looked like he knew his way around the area like he had been here long before Ada had, long before the eggplants appeared.

            Ada ran towards him, the words _Please help me_ leaving her lips before she even knew she was saying them.

            All she saw was a pair of yellow eyes before everything went pitch black.

 

ii.

“I’ll be honest—you looked much better when you were five years older,” Seonho said, leaning his elbows on the table.

            “ _Rude_ ,” said Everett, throwing a piece of beef in Seonho’s direction but the boy had reflexes like a cheetah. “I’ll have you know I’m the cutest, old or young.”

            “Hmm… debatable.” Seonho had the gall to actually _look_ like he was thinking about it. “But it wasn’t your looks that made me fall for you, so.” He shrugged.

            “You think you’re so smooth, huh?” Everett challenged, but he felt his cheeks heat up despite it. And judging by the look on Seonho’s face, he could tell.

            “Oh, I don’t _think_ , I _know_ ,” Seonho said, and his voice was like silk as he uttered those words. Everett would _love_ to wipe that smirk off his face. With his lips. If possible. If he wasn’t such a prude.

            Everett ended up looking down at his hands, defeated. He could hear Seonho laugh in front of him, and he felt him ruffle his hair fondly.

            “God, you’re adorable,” Seonho laughed, retracting his hand and taking a sip from Everett’s forgotten soda. “I can’t wait to see how you look like as a five-year-old.”

           

Everett watched as Seonho proceeded to take off all of his belongings off his office shelf, putting them in a cardboard box labeled _From the future_. He watched as his boyfriend dropped a picture frame, a snow globe, a glass figure of an angel, and other things that really shouldn’t be dropped so carelessly from a height into the box.

            Everett winced as the sound of glass shattering reached his ears as soon as the angle reached the floor. Seonho didn’t look too bothered, proceeding to drop a glass figurine of the company building into the box.

            “Are you fine with all of this… breaking?” Everett asked. “I mean… can’t you at least sell all of this after you leave work?”

            “Everett, Everett, Everett,” Seonho said, clicking his tongue and looking at Everett in the face. “Ignorant Everett. Don’t you know that, in this world we live in, we’re all bound by fate and fate only?”

            “Seonho, don’t be a smartass.”

            “You love it.” Seonho turned away from Everett to smile up at another picture frame on a higher shelf. Everett hid a smile of his own. “I’m only being careless like this because if it wasn’t meant to be broken, then it wouldn’t break in the first place.”

            Everett watched as Seonho dropped the picture frame into the box, the sharp sound of glass shattering making him wince again. He grabbed a glass figurine of an angel, the same one Everett gifted him so many months in the future.

            “If there’s one thing in this world that I believe in more than you—”

            Seonho let go of the figurine, and Everett watched as it fell in to the cardboard box.

            “—it’s that fate knows what it’s doing.”

            Seonho bent down and picked the figurine up, showing it to Everett.

            The angel was completely intact.

            “And a good thing, too, because if fate ever took me away from you, I’d bring you back myself,” Seonho said, smiling only a few centimeters away from Everett’s face. He leaned in, pressing his lips onto Everett’s, and Everett found himself closing his eyes as he always ended up doing.

 

The waiting time for the announcements was a week back in to the past. By then, Seonho would be assigned to his supposed college from his college years. Then from that, he would go to his high school, elementary, kindergarten… He might even go to a different place, if the so-called fate decreed it was his hometown.

            Everett knew it was inevitable that one day he would have to part with Seonho, that one day they would have to go back to where they came from, that everyone had to discover their roots, leaving everyone they ended up meeting in the future.

            _I can’t wait to see how you look like as a five-year-old._ Seonho had said those words so easily, but even Everett was smart enough to know that they might never even be with each other by that time. Unless they ended up becoming childhood friends, but the chances of that were very slim, the stories he’d heard of which seeming like a fairy tale to Everett.

            In this world they lived in, everyone started off from their own ending, happy or not. There were those who ended up living as a criminal, and there were those who ended up being the CEO of their very own company. Everyone started off from their death: waking up in hospital beds, rising from coffins, finding a noose wrapped around their necks without knowing why.

            And Everett? Everett woke up in the bathtub of his dorm room at age thirty-four. He had died by drowning himself in it.

            For all his fifteen years of living, Everett wanted to know why. He wanted to know why he decided to do such a thing even though he had a stable income at his job, had a great set of friends; even just the fact that he had a roof over his head was reason enough to be grateful.

            But at age twenty-five, Everett had met Seonho, the most beautiful man he’d ever layed eyes on, who had woken up in a hospital bed at age forty-one, whom Everett chose to fall in love with even when fate told him he was just meant to be his best friend.

            _If fate ever took me away from you, I’d bring you back myself_ , Seonho had said.

            But for Everett, if fate ever took Seonho away from him, he’d take everything from everyone, too.

 

Everett saw red. That was all he saw. The red of the traffic lights, the red of the sunset, the redness of Seonho’s lips as he lay in a pool of red blood, the red car flashing red lights as the driver ran in the other direction.

            _Wrong. Wrong. This isn’t right. Not right at all._

They were just walking together. They were going to go back home so Everett could finally watch the pilot episode of that show he had been keeping track of for a year now. The street light had been green. The traffic light had been red.

            Everett kneeled down next to Seonho, staring at the way his eyes were closed and the way the redness of his blood contrasted the grayness of the road, but even that was starting to look a little red, too.

            This wasn’t happening. No, it wasn’t. Seonho had died already. Seonho couldn’t die right now. He had died on a hospital bed with his family surrounding him, the sickness evident in his weak body.

            “That’s right,” Everett whispered, a small smile on his face. “This is just an accident by fate, right? You just have to go to the hospital and maybe I’ll have to cry over you for a few weeks, but then you’ll wake up and we’ll be fine again. You’re not… you can’t…”

            But Everett was a doctor. Everett could tell when someone’s heart wasn’t beating anymore, when someone’s brain wasn’t responding. In this world they lived in, that knowledge was hardly ever used.

            But tears were falling down Everett’s cheeks as he tried to keep a smile on his face. Seonho was his chosen lover; he couldn’t leave him like this. They haven’t even had their first meeting yet.

            Everett watched as the red blood reached the blueness of his jeans, saw the red traffic light turn green, saw the red car stay as red as ever.

            Red was Everett’s favorite color, and Seonho’s most hated one. And right now, Everett would give anything to not see red anymore, would give anything for Seonho to breathe again.

            But a flash of yellow passed by, and Everett lifted his head up despite the fog filling up his mind, unable to truly comprehend the situation in front of him.

            A man was walking near him, a yellow bag slung on his right shoulder, looking as if he couldn’t be bothered with a hit-and-run right now.

            Everett reached up to grab the man’s elbow, meeting yellow eyes.

            “He’s not dead, right?” he asked the man.

            The man looked down at him, yellow eyes meeting his own blue ones.

            “It depends on what you want to believe.”

            _If there’s one thing I believe in more than you…_

            “—it’s that fate knows what it’s doing,” Everett said, turning back to the boy on the ground. “Frankly, Seonho, I think fate is just bullshitting all of us.”

            “Do you want me to help you?” the man asked, and Everett looked back at him.

            “Will you be able to bring him back?” Everett asked.

            “Yes. But I think maybe you’d want more than just him back.”

            Everett looked back down at Seonho, who had his eyes closed. He saw the red gem hanging from the bracelet Everett bought him, out of spite when he found out Seonho hated the color red. The same one Seonho refused to take off even in the shower.

            “I want to live with him again,” Everett said. “I want to fall in love with him all over again. I want to start my life and end it with him. I want a new beginning with him in it.”

            He looked back at the man, who stared at him with yellow eyes.

            “Please help me,” he said.

            The man nodded.

            “That’s what I’m here for.”

            Everett fell.

 

iii.

“ _Seonho!_ ” Aponi screamed, shooting up from their bed with beads of sweat travelling down the sides of their forehead.

            They looked around them: The walls of their room were still white as they’d always been, as white as the curtains, the bed, the shelves, the ceiling, the lights, and even the pajamas they were wearing. The books lining their shelves were still white, and the slippers sitting at the edge of their bed were still white, too. No sign of red, or violet anywhere.

            Aponi curled up in their bed, hugging their knees and burying their face in them.

            _Please, no. Not him, too._

 

Aponi fiddled with the white butterfly ring wrapped around their right pinky finger as they sat in front of Dr. Nimuel, watching him as he fixed some papers on his desk.

            “So you’ve been having these dreams for a week now?” he asked, scribbling something on his notepad.

            “Yeah…” Aponi said, their voice faltering as they stared at something other than the psychiatrist before them. They were never fond of psychiatrists, but Dr. Nimuel was Aponi’s last resort.

            “You seem hesitant. Does this make you uncomfortable?” Dr. Nimuel asked, and Aponi could feel his brown eyes staring at them.

            “A little,” they admitted.

            “And why do you think that?”

            Aponi bit their lip, furrowing their eyebrows. They fiddled with their ring again.

            “It’s… it isn’t normal, is it?” they asked, looking back up at Dr. Nimuel. “To be so immersed in these dreams.”

            “Everyone has dreams where they see other worlds, Aponi,” he said.

            “I know that. We all learned about it in school,” Aponi said. “That everyone dreams of other worlds, that everyone gets to see what other universes are like. ‘Transcendence, the ability to see other worlds during sleep.’ I know that.”

            “Then why do you think it isn’t normal?”

            “Because it’s different for me,” Aponi answered, and they felt heads turning to their direction, eyes staring at them with those same looks that made Aponi want to hide in a corner. Because suddenly everyone was staring at Aponi, asking them _Different? You’re different? Why are you different?_

            And suddenly they were back to being fifteen all over again, standing in the middle of a room with a crowd of people surrounding them, asking them questions they couldn’t understand. Asking them why they were like that. Asking them why they were different. Asking them what they did to get this new ability. Telling them they needed to stop. Telling them to not tell anyone. Telling them that if they did, they’d _make_ them stop.

            “Aponi?”

            But Dr. Nimuel wasn’t looking at them like _they_ did. He was looking at them like he wanted to help. He was looking at them like he wanted to understand.

            “If I tell you, would you help me?” Aponi asked.

            Dr. Nimuel kept looking at them.

            “Of course, Aponi,” he finally said. “Just say the word and I will.”

 

“Transcendence, the ability to see other worlds during sleep.” Everyone had that ability, had what was considered normal in this world. When someone closed their eyes to drift into a long, long sleep, they were able to see a different world from their own. There were stories of seeing worlds that had flying cars, of worlds where flowers were as tall as trees, of worlds where human interaction was forbidden, of worlds where love was an obligation, of worlds where nothing existed.

            For everyone else, it was like watching a movie. It was like sitting in the cinema and watching the opening credits come up as they introduced the characters, explained the setting, showed the story but never explained the ending, because at that point, everyone would already be waking up.

            But for Aponi, it was like they were part of it. For Aponi, they were the character that played the main role in the movie. They felt all the pain, all the suffering, the rollercoaster of emotions that went up and down as everyone around them changed. They felt the happiness and joy of the people they played as; _they_ were _them_.

            For everyone else, a different movie would come up every time. For Aponi, it was only two.

            For their entire life, they had been playing two characters from two different worlds, from the point when one of them was born and the point when one of them died. They were both a girl who grew up with a mother who loved her wholeheartedly, and a man who wanted to know why he drowned himself in a bathtub. They were both a girl who wanted to know why the people around her started doing something so ridiculous, and a man who fell in love with a man fate told him he couldn’t fall in love with. They were a girl who lost her mother, and a boy who lost his lover, two people who lost the one person they loved the most.

            Aponi was a person who had no one in this world, but had two people who didn’t know there was still one person out there loving them.

            Aponi didn’t want help; they wanted to help them.

            Even if it meant leaving this world for another.

 

iv.

 _Please help me_ were the only words Nimuel needed. The only words that could grant anyone’s wish. He didn’t need anyone’s money, or soul, or precious item—all he needed was them to admit they needed help. All he needed was that moment of desperation where people were willing to give everything they had to have one thing they didn’t.

            Nimuel was able to say many things, but _Please help me_ wasn’t one of them, so he needed someone else to say them for him, so he could help himself through them.

            Because help was the one thing he was allowed to give, but wasn’t allowed to have.

            He had watched the three of them as they strayed from the norms of their own worlds—watched as Ada refused to worship something she decided wasn’t worth her praise; watched as Everett threw away what fate decreed for him and chose to be with his best friend; watched as Aponi watched these two and felt what the two of them felt, deciding that this world was a place they didn’t want to live in anymore.

            He knew what they wanted, and knew what they needed.

            _Please help me_ , Ada had said, when the violet was spreading across her body.

            _Please help me_ , Everett had said, surrounded by the red of his lover’s blood.

            _Please help them_ , Aponi had finally said, fiddling with the white butterfly ring around their finger.

            And Nimuel had looked them in the eye, and he had seen the color of his eyes reflected in theirs: a blinding shade of yellow that none of them would have been able to see had they not asked him for help.

            “That’s what I’m here for,” Nimuel had said to all of them, as all of them fell into a deep sleep, for Nimuel was one who could grant any wish.

            Any wish but his own.

 

Ada woke up to find herself staring up at a light blue ceiling, lying down on a soft bed she was unfamiliar with. She sat up from the bed, looking at the barren room she was in: there wasn’t anything in it, other than the bed, a table, and a window letting in a little light into the room.

            She looked down at her hands and saw the violet color still present on them. It had stopped spreading across her body, and only left a purple tint on her skin, like the leftover paint that wouldn’t come off unless scrubbed off very painfully. It was no longer on her arms, but in the center of her palms was that purple color that made Ada sick. 

            She jumped off of the bed and approached the table under the window. There was a pair of fingerless gloves sitting on it, in a wonderful shade of blue. She looked at the palms of her hands again, staring at the sickening purple color of it.

            “Whoever the hell put me in here must be very generous,” she murmured to herself.

            She put the gloves on and walked out of the room, not bothering to check what was out of the window.

           

Everett stared out of the window, sitting on the window sill. There were people walking on the streets of wherever he was, and buildings that Everett was unfamiliar with. Cars passed by, and Everett wondered if any of them had hit someone before.

            But Everett didn’t care about those people. He only cared about one.

            “Hey, is there anyone there? Hellooo!”

            There was a high-pitched voice yelling out of the door of his room, and Everett only had time to turn to it before it was being opened.

            A girl had burst in the room, looking like she had just run a marathon. She looked surprised to see a nineteen-year-old boy sitting on the windowsill.

            “Woah, no way; there really was someone in here,” she said, breathless. Everett took notice of the blue gloves she was wearing. He had found something similar sitting on the windowsill: a blue bracelet that matched Seonho’s red one. One that looked very similar to the one Everett had lost. Seonho had bought it for him when he saw his own bracelet was part of a pair. Everett had said sorry for losing it, but Seonho reassured him, telling him it didn’t matter, as long as Everett didn’t lose him.

            Everett turned back to staring out of the window.

            “Hey, aren’t you the least bit curious that a complete stranger just walked in?” the girl asked. “Have you even left this room?”

            “There’s nothing exciting out there, anyway,” Everett answered.

            “Says the guy who never went out in the first place.”

            A silence filled the room. Everett heard the girl sigh.

            “Oh, for the Holy Root Crop’s sake—just come with me!”

            Everett had only two seconds before the girl was dragging him out of the room, making him almost trip on the way out.

            “I think we got kidnapped or something,” she was busy explaining as they walked out of the room. They found themselves in a blue carpeted hallway, a set of stairs leading down a few rooms over. “We’re on the second floor, I think. I just came out of that room—” she pointed to a room at the end of the hallway— “and all of the other rooms from that to the one you were in were all empty. There are another set of rooms on the other end of this hallway, but I haven’t checked them out yet. I haven’t gone downstairs yet, either.”

            “I literally could not care less,” Everett said, and he could hear Seonho say, _That’s my boyfriend! I knew I taught you well._

            “Yeah, well, you’re out here with me right now, so you don’t really have a choice,” the girl said, undeterred by Everett’s indifference. “We should check out the other rooms before we go downstairs. Maybe there’s another perso—”

            Suddenly, the door at the end of the hallway opened, and out came another person, a blue butterfly ring wrapped around their pinky finger. Everett couldn’t tell if they were a girl or a boy. When the newcomer caught sight of them, their eyes widened.

            “Ada. Everett,” they said, almost gasping.

            “What the—” the girl, probably Ada, exclaimed. “How the hell do you know my name?”

            “Seconded,” said Everett, squinting his eyes at the person. “Who are you?”

            The newcomer opened their mouth, but then closed it. For a moment, it looked like they were going to cry, but it was immediately replaced by a smile on their face.

            “Sorry, Nimuel was the one who brought the three of us here,” they supplied, like that was helpful information. “He’ll explain to us in a minute. My name’s Aponi,” they added.

            “Wait a minute,” Ada said, putting up a hand (which was, sadly, not the one gripping Everett’s arm). “So this ‘Nimuel’ guy… you know him?”

            “Yes,” they answered, now walking towards Everett and Ada. “Sorry, this all must be very confusing. It’s alright, though; Nimuel’s a wonderful guy. He’s probably downstairs now—let’s go there now.”

            Aponi moved to go downstairs—

            “Wait,” Everett said, and Aponi stopped in their tracks, turning back to Everett with a questioning look. “You didn’t answer Ada’s question.”

            “You mean, ‘Why do I know your names?’ ” they asked.

            “Yeah, that one.”

            Aponi smiled at the both of them.

            “I’ve known the both of you for a long time. I should at least know your names, don’t you think?”

 

Of course they wouldn’t know them. Aponi was silly for even thinking they’d know them. So they hid the silent tears that were pooling around their eyes as the three of them walked down the staircase, passing by the living room and heading towards the kitchen, every room some shade of blue.

            Everett didn’t seem to trust Aponi, but Ada was staying close to their side, talking animatedly.

            “Can’t you tell us what’s going on?” she asked, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Who’s this Nimuel? And why are we here? More importantly, what did you mean when you said that you knew us?”

            “Sadly, I don’t really know much, either,” Aponi answered. “Nimuel’s from my world. I think he brought us here to help us. But he never really specifi—”

            “Hold on,” Everett interrupted, speaking for the first time since the three of them met at the top of the staircase, “ ‘ _your_ world?’ ”

            “Ah,” Aponi said. “About that…”

            “I see you’re all here,” said a voice.

            The three of them turned to see a man standing by the arch leading to the kitchen: it was Nimuel. But something about him made Aponi furrow their eyebrows—Nimuel’s former brown eyes (which had turned yellow when Aponi asked him to help the three of them) were now a bright shade of lightning blue.

            Nonetheless, it was Nimuel, so Aponi lead the group towards him.

            “Guys, this is Nimuel Jiamante, my psychiatrist,” Aponi introduced to the duo, who looked even more confused.

            “Your psychiatrist,” Everett echoed in a flat but questioning tone.

            “But this is the guy I saw before I fainted,” Ada recognized, pointing a finger. “How the hell is he your psychiatrist?”

            Nimuel chuckled, making the three of them turn to him.

            “To Aponi, I am their psychiatrist,” he said. “But to _all_ of you, I am one who grants wishes.”

            “Wishes?” they all asked. Nimuel smiled.

            “Don’t you remember, Ada?” he asked, turning to the girl, who had her mouth open. “You asked me to help you when the violet was spreading across your body, right after when your mother betrayed you.”

            For the first time, Ada was silent. Nimuel turned to Everett.

            “And Everett, you asked me to—”

            “—to bring Seonho back,” Everett finished for him, a dark look in his eyes. “I know.”

            Nimuel smiled at him, then turned to Aponi.

            “And you, Aponi. You asked me to help them, though you didn’t know they already asked for my help, correct?” he said.

            Aponi was silent for a moment. The last they had seen of Ada was when the violet was starting to spread across her body. For Everett, it was when Seonho was on the ground, already having been hit by the car.

            “In exchange for a wish you asked for in their stead, I will instead help you,” Nimuel said. “I will help all of you.

            “All of you are from worlds independent of one another. There are many more worlds other than yours—Aponi can attest to that, as their world is one that can see other ones. In their case, Aponi saw the both of yours, which is why they are familiar with you.

            “As I said before, I will help grant your wishes. Do not worry about a price; I have already taken it. Worry only about whether you still want it granted.”

            The three of them were silent.

            “How will you help us?” Everett asked. “How will you bring Seonho back?”

            “The three of you now are in a new world,” Nimuel said. “This world is one that is most connected to all the other ones, in that every single person in this world is a copy of all the souls in all the other worlds. You could well meet your chosen lover,” he turned to Ada, “as well as your very own mother.”

            Nimuel turned to Aponi.

            “And you, my dear one…” he smiled. “Well, I’ve already granted your wish, haven’t I?”

            Aponi nodded, slowly, trying their best not to look at the two people they’ve learned to love.

            “As you can see,” Nimuel turned to the rest of them, “living in this world will be able to grant your wishes.”

            “Couldn’t you have just brought my mother here with me?” Ada blurted out. “You said it yourself: you could grant any wish. Why bring us here when you could make it so much easier?”

            “The world is bound by rules; you’d know that, wouldn’t you?” Nimuel said, and Ada flinched. “I can grant any wish, yes, but only in that it does not go against the laws of the world. If I were to break those laws, why…”

            Nimuel smiled again.

            “… perhaps, your wish would never be granted, at all, my dear one.”

            Again, Ada fell silent, and Nimuel took that as a sign to turn to continue talking.

            “But Ada has a point: in this, you may have your wish granted, but it would be hard to achieve it. Perhaps, you might even lose hope in it ever being granted. If you wish to return to your respective worlds, and live as you were fated to, then you may do so.”

            The three of them fell silent.

            “Let me just get this straight,” Everett spoke up again. “If I live here, I could meet Seonho again?”

            “That is right, Everett.”

            “What if he doesn’t recognize me?”

            Nimuel smiled.

            “Does that really matter to you?” he asked, and Everett paused.

            “No. No, it doesn’t,” he answered. “Fine. I’ll live here. I don’t care who you are, or what you are, but if living here means I can meet him again, then I’ll forget all about where I came from.”

            “Ada?” Nimuel turned to the girl.

            “I’ll stay here, too,” she answered. “I don’t want to go back, ever. That place was full of idiots, anyway. The Mother there isn’t the one I grew up with. I’m staying.”

            “And you, Aponi?” Nimuel turned to them.

            “I want to ask you many questions,” Aponi said. “Who are you? What exactly are you? Where are you from? Why do your eyes change color? How can you grant wishes? How can any of us trust you? How do we know that you’re not dangerous? How do we know that any of this is even real?”

            Nimuel smiled. “And yet, my dear Aponi, none of it matters.”

            Yes, none of it mattered, because Aponi’s wish had already been granted.

            “I will leave all of you now,” Nimuel said, turning to the rest of them. “Perhaps we’ll meet again, and perhaps we won’t. But if we do, as long as you ask for my help, I will help you.”

            And then he was gone, leaving the three of them to look at each other, uncertain.

            “So… what now?” Ada asked, looking at the both of them.

            “I don’t know about you two, but I’m going to look for Seonho,” Everett said, already turning away to leave the house. “I don’t care how long it takes; I’m not gonna stop until I find him.”

            “Wait, hang on,” Ada said, grabbing onto Everett’s hand. “You can’t just leave us.”

            “Why not?” he countered. “I don’t know any of you, even if Aponi there knows who we are—which, by the way, I’m not one hundred percent comfortable with—so I don’t really see why we have to stick together.”

            “We’re _connected_ ,” Ada said, tightening her grip on Everett’s arm. “Don’t you see that? I don’t really get the whole we’re-from-different-universes thing, but if we are, then that means we need each other. To grant our own wishes. Nimuel already helped us; now we need to help each other. I mean,” she turned to Aponi, “don’t you think so?”

            The two of them looked at Aponi, who in turn looked back at them. They smiled at them.

            “I do,” they said, earning a brightened look from Ada.

            “Then we’re good!” Ada exclaimed. “We’ll look for my mother, and Sohnu—”

            “It’s _Seonho_ ,” Everett corrected, glaring.

            “—Seonho, and then we’ll be able to live the way we want to,” Ada finished. “No more rules, no more boundaries, and no more evil eggplant worshippers who think they can get away with brainwashing innocent citizens.”

            “That’s oddly specific, but fine.”

            Aponi watched the two of them bicker, smiling to themselves. They knew that their mission was nearly impossible, and that perhaps they wouldn’t get exactly what they wanted.

            But Aponi’s wish had already been granted, so who were they to say that theirs couldn’t be granted, either?

            “Let’s get started,” they said. “We have a long way to go.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are very much appreciated!


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